A pressure cooker comprises an open mouth vessel and a lid which can be sealingly fitted to the mouth. In the lid is fitted a pressure regulating valve which comes into operation when the steam pressure within the vessel exceeds a desired limit. The valve exhausts the steam through a vent tube on which is fitted a vent weight.
It has been experienced that the vent tube sometimes tends to get clogged with particles of food being cooked. The result is that the vent tube and the vent weight become ineffective. This can lead to explosion hazards.
The vent weight due to high temperature in the pressure cooker becomes very hot so that it cannot be removed by hand, but even if it is removed for example, by a tool, the clogged material in the passage of the vent tube is not noticed and cannot be easily removed.
The object of the present invention is to provide a pressure cooker in which the vent tube and the vent weight are so designed that the possibility of clogging of the vent tube is substantially eliminated.
A further object of this invention is to provide means with the pressure cooker whereby the operator can determine whether the vent tube is functioning effectively such that there is no clogging of the vent tube and the cooking in the vessel is proceeding in the normal manner.
It is another object of this invention that it should be possible to maintain substantially constant pressure in the vessel so that the food is cooked at the desired pressure.